November 13th Observations

Rotifer egg case

The first organism I observed this week was a rotifer egg case (Pennak, pg 184, fig 19).  Most species of rotifers can reproduce sexually or asexually when there are not males present.  In a lot of species the males are born sexually fertile and never develop a digestive system so they don't live very long.  The females can live from a couple of days up to about 2 weeks.  The eggs can either hatch very quickly or become resting eggs and wait until the environmental conditions improve.  (Pennak)

 

Amoeba sp

The next organism I observed was a single celled Amoeba (Patterson, fig 195).  The Amoeba alters its' shape as it moves with the use of pseudopods.  This was the first time I observed an Amoeba.

 Vorticella sp

The final organism I observed this week, and the final organism I identified in my micro-aquarium, was a protozoa of the Genus Vorticella sp (Patterson, fig 232-236).  This one was attached by its' stalk to the bladderwort, but their were several throughout the micro-aquarium.    

Final Notes

Throughout my four weeks of observations I was able to identify nine different organisms.  I observed several others as well, but was not able to capture images of them or identify them.  Upon completion I will post a copy of my Report in its' entirety to this blog.  I leave you with a final image of my micro-aquarium at the end of the last day of observations. 

November 6th Observations

I decided to begin my November 6th Observations by attempting to locate the organisms that I have identified over the past couple weeks.  The first I was able to find was the Dero Vagus sp (Pennak, fig. 11G) which I identified during my October 30th observations.  I located one in the vicinity of the bladderwort and three around the moss; one of which was very inactive and may be close to death.

I was able to locate dozens of Euchlanis sp (Pennak, pg 171, fig 2) which I identified during my first observations.  They were mainly in the vicinity of the bladderwort.

There were three different Euplotes (Patterson, fig 260) that I came across.  Two were very active and one appeared dead.

I observed what was probably the same Limnias (Donner, fig. 72) that I observed last week along with a second attached in the same area of the bladderwort.

The only organism I was not able to locate was the Litonotus sp (Patterson, fig. 285).  In my first observations I located several of these.  It is possible that they required something from the water source that was not transferred over to the micro-aquarium.  However, it is more likely that I simply could not find them.

Chaetonotus sp

I was able to identify one new organism this week.  There were several of the Chaetonotus sp (Pennak, fig. 7) in the vicinity of the bladderwort close to the soil.  They "swim" at a constant pace until they run head first into each other or another organism; at which time they shoot, like a space ship going into warp speed, in the opposite direction.